The government of Oyo State has stated that it intends to test 2,000 individuals per day and about 10,000 within one week for the COVID-19 disease.
Governor Seyi Makinde who revealed this through his Twitter handle said the outcome of the tests would determine if Oyo State will be on lockdown or not.
He said about 2,000 test kits have been donated for the exercise which will be handled by Life Bank Nigeria.
Lagos, FCT and Ogun state has been put on total lockdown by the Federal Government while several states like Osun and Delta also declared a total lockdown.
See Also: Osun Governor Extends Lockdown By Another 14 Days
Oyo state however only has a dusk to dawn curfew in place while clubs and bars remain closed. Civil servants have also been asked to stay home and schools are also closed.
Read the tweets below:
Today, we started the drive/walk-through testing initiative for COVID-19 to test 2,000 people at Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan. The test kits were donated by the Citizen for Citizen Initiative and the tests are executed by @LifeBankNigeria.
Experts have opined that the best place to start in solving our peculiar problems is by ramping up our testing capabilities. This is why we collaborated with the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, to set up a diagnostic centre to test for COVID-19 right here in Ibadan.
Indeed, with social distancing through lockdowns proving to be the most effective way of checking community spread, and the fact that people can have COVID-19 and be asymptomatic, large-scale testing will help us determine where and when targeted lockdowns are necessary.
Today, we are implementing one of the actions that is fundamental in deciding what our next steps will be.
In the next few days, we will see for ourselves whether a complete lockdown is necessary. We plan to test 10,000 people in the shortest possible time.
Let me use this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Citizen for Citizen Initiative led by Mrs Ibukun Awosika, which donated the 2,000 test kits we will use for the tests. We also thank @LifeBankNigeria which is collaborating with us to conduct the tests
Nigeria currently has 362 confirmed Coronavirus cases with Oyo having 11.